All The Ways To Drown
by Sunset's Crying
Summary: There are a thousand ways to drown. But in my case, it started with the rain and a girl.


This is for rain. Because despite the fact that I have to deal with awkwardly poofy hair the next day, I love playing in it. Because in the rain, it's okay to be utterly ridiculous and downright childish.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Vocaloid in any way, shape of form.

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* * *

It started with the rain and a girl.

* * *

That morning, a lot of things went wrong. I woke up late. My toast burned in the toaster. I almost left my government and politics assignment on the table. I stubbed my toe on the corner of a doorway. I couldn't find my keys.

That morning, I didn't check the weather. That morning, the skies were bright blue. They didn't stay blue for long.

By noon, the sky had turned grey. By two thirty the rain was pounding against the asphalt outside. At two forty-five, a chorus of cellphones sang. The local weather station had sent a flash flood warning. By three, it still hadn't stopped.

The buses were packed. The carpool lane was backed up. Most people brought their own umbrellas. Some were willing to share. The rest made a run for it. But me? I had no where to be and nothing all that important to do. So I stayed. I've never like the rain all the much to begin with. In fact, I'm sure I used to hate it.

It was a warm day out. My school was in that awkward phase where the inside of the building was colder than the temperature outside. Claiming a bench under the overhang, I could hear the rain splashing against the ground few feet away. Maybe it wasn't that I hated the rain. Maybe it had more to do that it irritated me. Yeah. Maybe that was it. Lost in the sound of the rainfall, I didn't notice when she arrived.

"Hey there Yuuma."

How long had she been standing there anyways?

"Are you waitin' to be picked up?"

"No…." As if those workaholics had time for anything that involved stepping out of their offices…

"Then what are you waitin' for?"

At the time, I could barely remember her name. Mia? Tia? Lia? It's actually Aria. Aria Planetes. But she goes by Ia. Ia is one of those happy-go-lucky girls, always smiling, always off in space dreaming about something else. All the guys in school called her beautiful. She's still beautiful now. With trailing hair that's so blonde it's practically white and huge violet eyes, I used to joke she came from another world entirely.

"Nothing, really."

Lips drawing into a pout, she started rocking on her heels. Swinging her school bag along with her, the corners would crash into her knees very so often.

"Then…why?"

Standing with her back to the rain, outlined by the dark skies, she glowed. I couldn't see anything but her.

"Why, what?"

I remember wishing for her to go away.

"Why are you still here?"

I remember wondering why she was even bothering to talk to me. Everyone else left me alone. Why wouldn't she do the same?

"What does it matter to you?"

Biting her lips, her words were quieter than before.

"I was just…curious…"

"Well it's none of your business."

I'll admit it - I was unnecessarily harsh.

"…Yeah….I guess so, huh?"

If I hadn't been paying attention, those words would have been lost in the rain.

"Oh! How'd you do on the math test? It was pretty easy, wasn't it? I got a 95."

Recovering quickly, smiling so proudly, there was nothing more I wanted in that moment than to knock the look right off her face. How childish. I'm pretty sure I sent my bag flying instead. Hitting the ground, my books splayed out, scattering in every direction. Ia didn't say anything. She didn't even gasp out in surprise. She simply crouched down and quietly gathered by books. She always did have a godly amount of patience.

Under the sound of the rain, I struggled to breathe. Fingers digging into the bench, blood pounding behind my eyes, I knew I had no right to be mad at her. I knew that I was overreacting. But the pain in my chest, the insecurities locked up inside, they were surging, uncontrollably, to the point of bursting out of my chest. In that moment, I couldn't have hated the rain more.

"You know…"

Holding a piece of paper in her hands, she was standing so close that our knees were touching. From where she stood, I could see my incorrect answers, the red scrawl of an 80 across the top. Inexcusable.

"It's okay….to be imperfect every now and then…."

Such simple words. A cliché if anything. But God, how they burned.

"You think _**I don't know that**_?"

Have you ever drowned before?

"You think I don't _**know**_ that '_it's okay to be imperfect_'?"

It didn't have to be in water.

"You think that I didn't _**know**_ that perfection is impossible? That everyone makes mistakes?"

Do you know what I'm talking about?

"How could I _**not**_ know?"

You can't breathe…

"And even so!"

And all you can do is gasp for air….

"I'd figure I could at least _try_!"

But your lungs never fill…

"….How else am I going to get them to notice me?"

And the weight on your chest…

"How else am I supposed to get to remember that I'm their son and not just some random kid that happens to live in the house neither of them step in?"

Crushes you….

"They only want one thing from me! _**One thing**_!"

Until the moment you stop struggling….

"So why can't I give it to them?"

And _die_.

"I know this is stupid and pathetic and that I shouldn't care about what they think because this is my life and yada yada ya. I know that. I really do…I just….I can't…."

"Then find something new."

Taking my math test, Ia ripped it in half.

"Something that you believe is worth fightin' for."

Eighths.

"It doesn' have to be now."

Sixteenths.

"You don't have to know what it is immediately."

Thirty-secondths.

"After all, we have all the time in the world to figure it out."

Holding the pieces of my math test tight, she squeezed her fist before throwing them up into the air. Caught by the momentum, dragged down by gravity, the fluttered, slowly, before being whipped by the wind and out of sight.

"For now, at this moment, it's ok to simply be you, whatever that may be."

For a while, it was silent. I remember thinking how stupid the entire conversation was. How pointless. As if things could change so easily. As if ripping up my bad grade made it go away. But even so, I felt hopeful. Ask me another other day and I'll deny it. But I was.

This would be the cliché part of the story where the rain stops and blue skies reappear from no where. This is not that story. This is something called life. It rarely works out so beautifully.

Instead of blue skies, the rain pounded down even harder. As the wind picked up, our phones rang simultaneously with another warning. Getting sprayed with mist, Ia's hair whipped around violently, a storm of its own. And even so, that crazy girl smiled.

"Dance with me Yuuma."

"Wait, _what_?"

Pulling on my hands, she dragged me to the edge of the overhang. Suddenly letting go, she leap into the rain, instantly getting wet. Everything clung to her. Her hair, her clothes, the rain. At the time, I didn't know where to look….Throwing her arms out, she screamed in wild delight. Twirling in slow circles, she yelled, "Come join me Yuuma! Dance with me!"

And as I stood under the edge of the overhang, I remember drowning. Practiced self-restraint crushing my chest, I couldn't move. Hesitation wrapped around my throat, I couldn't breathe.

I've never been fond of the rain. It always seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. Yeah the earth needs water and stuff but the extra weight of an umbrella? The constant wet feeling, the soggy shoes? In my life, the rain was impractical. Making my life more difficult than it needed to be, the rain was simply something else I needed to overcome. I couldn't control it. I couldn't change it. It just was. I hated that more than anything. How ridiculous. When did I become that way? When did I become so hell bent on control? When did it become frightening to let go?

But her small hand reached towards mine and even though I hated the rain, the lack of control, the feelings suffocating within my chest, I impulsively grabbed on anyways. It was that easy. Holding on tight, the world revolved around our joint hands. Drenched by the rain, Ia screamed in childish delight. Raindrops slipping down my face, over my eyes, through my clothes, I drowned and I died and for the first time, in a really long time, I lived. I could breathe and my voice, unleashed, echoed in resonance, unbound, free. The rain, on my skin, it was so cool and so good and for no reason at all, we screamed. We screamed and screamed, heard by no one but us and the rain because somehow….impossibly….the world was ours and no one could take that away.

That day, we should have drowned in the rain. But we didn't. Dancing to a melody that existed only in our hearts, we lived for reasons we could barely say. However, that day, I drowned in her eyes. I drowned in the way they looked at me, _really _looked at me. Had they always looked at me that way?

It was an accidental sort of death. The kind of death where you don't realize you're dying until it's too late. The kind of death where you can't find it in yourself to regret it at all. Unnaturally close, drowning just like that, she leaned up and kissed me. A simple press of the lips. It lasted no more than a couple seconds. It felt like eternity.

Smiling shyly at me, there were no words to describe the surprise that I felt. Gasping for breath, searching for the right words to say, I fell a little deeper, more than before. But Ia shook her head no and held a finger to my lips. Stepping back to get our bags, she handed mine to me and quickly ran off, a blur against the rain.

I'd never felt more confused.

* * *

It ended with a cold and a girl.

* * *

The next day, I woke up with a massive headache. Someone was pounding on the door. The irritation I felt. Stumbling out of bed, I remember….well….not much, really. I may or may not have cursed the rain or the door. It's debatable. But when I opened the door, there she was, bundled up tight in a coat, holding a sealed container in her hands.

Cheeks bright right, she awkwardly held out the container like it was an offering. "My brother…. ah-ah-ahCHO!"

Sneezing violently, she stumbled into me, her head knocking into my chest.

"Bless you."

Swaying back on her feet, she gave me a strained smile.

"Thanks…."

Sniffling her nose, she placed the container in my hands. Looking down at our hands, she mumbled, "My brother made us some chicken soup….eat it with me…?"

There were a lot of things that went wrong that morning. The headache for starters. The fact that I had slept through my alarm and skipped school. The fact that I couldn't breathe through my nose. And yet, despite all of that, it couldn't have been a better day.

Smiling like an idiot, I took her hand and pulled her inside. As it turns out, the rain isn't so bad after all.


End file.
